Engineering Manager, Data New Lisbon, Portugal

GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking. GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK with offices in London and Leeds, and additional locations in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal and the United States.

At GoCardless, we’re all about supporting you! We’re committed to making our hiring process inclusive and accessible. If you need extra support or adjustments, reach out to your Talent Partner — we’re here to help! And remember: we don’t expect you to meet every single requirement. If you’re excited by this role, we encourage you to apply!

The Role

We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Data and Analytics Platform teams. You will be accountable for building and operating the foundational data infrastructure that powers decision-making across GoCardless, while developing a high-performing team of data engineers. You’ll sit within our Data and Business Systems group and will be responsible for two critical platform areas:

• Core Data Platform - providing unified, governed data ingress and movement into the GoCardless data estate, including batch ingestion, CDC replication, streaming infrastructure, and schema validation.
• Analytics Platform - delivering trusted analytics, shared metrics, and decision support through analytical storage, semantic layers, governance, and self-service tooling.

This is a leadership role that balances technical accountability with people management. You’ll own the reliability, standards, and evolution of these platforms while growing the engineering talent that builds and operates them.

What excites you

You’ll be accountable for your teams delivering against their platform objectives, owning the technical vision and roadmap for Core Data Platform and Analytics Platform. This means guaranteeing reliability and resilience, defining supported patterns and governance frameworks, and managing platform costs and efficiency. You’ll enable self-service adoption through documentation and tooling that allow teams to ship data solutions confidently. As a people leader, you’ll:

• Manage data engineers across both teams, conducting regular 1:1s and performance reviews
• Attract and retain talent through recruitment and development, creating a high-trust environment with psychological safety where people can do their best work
• Align your teams to Group objectives with clear operational metrics and SLOs, consistently removing blockers and resolving complex cross-functional issues
• Provide regular, transparent reporting to Group leadership on platform health, adoption, and strategic progress

What excites us

• Engineering management experience: Proven track record managing and developing data or platform engineering teams, with direct line management responsibility
• Data platform expertise: Deep technical understanding of data infrastructure, including ETL/ELT pipelines, data warehousing, streaming systems, and cloud data platforms
• Platform thinking: Experience building self-service platforms with clear contracts and abstractions, not just delivering one-off solutions
• Stakeholder management: Ability to coordinate with technical and non-technical stakeholders, translating business needs into platform capabilities
• Operational excellence: Track record of owning reliability, incident response, and operational metrics for production systems

Technical Skills

• Strong understanding of modern data engineering patterns and technologies
• Experience with SQL, data modelling, and dimensional modelling concepts
• Familiarity with infrastructure as code, CI/CD practices, and platform tooling
• Understanding of data governance, security, and compliance requirements

The Good Stuff!

• Wellbeing: Dedicated support and medical cover to keep you healthy.
• Work Away Scheme: Work from anywhere for up to 90 days in any 12-month period.
• Hybrid Working: Our hybrid model offers flexibility, with in-office days determined by your team.
• Equity: All permanently employed GeeCees get equity to share in our success.
• Parental leave: Tailored leave to support your life’s great adventure.
• Time off: Annual holiday leave based on your location, supplemented by 3 volunteer days and 4 wellness days.

Life at GoCardless

We’re an organisation defined by our values; We start with why before we begin any project, to ensure it’s aligned with our mission. We make it happen, working with urgency and taking personal accountability for getting things done. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it’s essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Our Values form part of the GoCardless DNA, and are used to not only help us nurture and develop our culture, but to deliver impactful work that will help us to achieve our vision.

Diversity & Inclusion

We’re building the payment network of the future, and to achieve our goal, we need a diverse team with a range of perspectives and experiences.

Sustainability at GoCardless

We’re committed to reducing our environmental impact and leaving a sustainable world for future generations.